How to convert an Iterator to a Spliterator

Question

I have 4 large files (around 1.5 gb each) and I want to process these files, read each line of the file and convert it to a customer object. I have the following implementation.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.UncheckedIOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.function.Consumer;
import java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream;

import static java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8;

public class CustomerDataAccess {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        CustomerFileItem john = new CustomerFileItem("CustFile1", "http://w.customer1.com");
        CustomerFileItem sarah = new CustomerFileItem("CustFile2", "http://w.customer2.com");
        CustomerFileItem charles = new CustomerFileItem("CustFile3", "http://w.customer3.com");
        List<CustomerFileItem> customers = Arrays.asList(john, sarah, charles);

        Iterator<CustomerFileLineItem> custList = new CustIterator(customers);
    }

    public static class CustIterator implements Iterator<CustomerFileLineItem> {

        private static final int HEADER_LINES = 9; // 8 + 1 blank line
        BufferedReader bufferedReader;

        private int index = 0;
        private final List<CustomerFileItem> custFileItems = new ArrayList<>();


        public CustIterator(final List<CustomerFileItem> custFileItems) throws IOException {
            this.custFileItems.addAll(custFileItems);
            processNext();
        }

        private void processNext() throws IOException {
            if (bufferedReader != null) {
                bufferedReader.close();
            }
            if (index < custFileItems.size()) { // only update if there's another file
                CustomerFileItem custFileItem = custFileItems.get(index);
                GZIPInputStream gis = new GZIPInputStream(new URL(custFileItem.url).openStream());
                // default buffer size is 8 KB
                bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(gis, UTF_8));
                // read the first few lines
                for (int i = 0; i < HEADER_LINES; i++) {
                    bufferedReader.readLine();
                }
            }
            index++;
        }

        @Override
        public boolean hasNext() {
            try {
                boolean currentReaderStatus = bufferedReader.ready();
                if (currentReaderStatus) {
                    return true;
                } else if (index < custFileItems.size()) {
                    // at end of current file, try to get the next one
                    processNext();
                    return hasNext();
                } else { // no more files left
                    return false;
                }
            } catch (IOException e) {
                try {
                    bufferedReader.close();
                } catch (IOException e1) {
                    throw new UncheckedIOException(e1);
                }
                throw new UncheckedIOException(e);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public CustomerFileLineItem next() {
            try {
                String line = bufferedReader.readLine();
                if (line != null) {
                    return new CustomerFileLineItem(line);
                } else {
                    return null;
                }
            } catch (IllegalArgumentException exception) {
                return null;
            } catch (IOException e) {
                try {
                    bufferedReader.close();
                } catch (IOException e1) {
                    throw new UncheckedIOException(e1);
                }
                throw new UncheckedIOException(e);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void remove() {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
        }

        @Override
        public void forEachRemaining(final Consumer<? super CustomerFileLineItem> action) {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
        }
    }


    public static class CustomerFileLineItem {
        private static final int NUMBER_OF_FIELDS = 4;

        final String id;
        final String productNumber;
        final String usageType;
        final String operation;


        public CustomerFileLineItem(final String line) {
            String[] strings = line.split(",");
            if (strings.length != NUMBER_OF_FIELDS) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(String.format("Malformed customer file line: %s", line));
            }
            this.id = strings[0];
            this.productNumber = strings[1];
            this.usageType = strings[3];
            this.operation = strings[4];
        }
    }

    static class CustomerFileItem {
        private String fileName;
        private String url;

        public CustomerFileItem(String fileName, String url) {
            this.fileName = fileName;
            this.url = url;
        }
    }


}

In one of use case I want use streams in the output list(custList). But I know I can't use streams with Iterator. How I can convert it to Spliterator? Or how can I implement the same that I implement with Iterator in Spliterator?

Answer 1

Every Iterable<T> object has the following methods:

• Iterator<T> iterator() returning Iterator<T>
• default Spliterator<T> spliterator() (default method) returning Spliterator<T>

Therefore, you want to create Iterable<T> back from Iterator<T> which requires to override the only one non-default and abstract method:

Iterable<CustomerFileLineItem> iterable = new Iterable<CustomerFileLineItem>() {
    @Override
    public Iterator<CustomerFileLineItem> iterator() {
        return custList;
    }
};

This can be shortened into a lambda expression resulting in:

Iterable<CustomerFileLineItem> iterable = () -> custList;
Spliterator<CustomerFileLineItem> spliterator = iterable.spliterator();

... so the Stream is easily to be created:

Stream<CustomerFileLineItem> stream = StreamSupport.stream(spliterator, false);

Answer 2

TL;DR You don’t need to implement an Iterator or Spliterator, you can simply use a Stream in the first place:

private static final int HEADER_LINES = 9; // 8 + 1 blank line

Stream<CustomerFileLineItem> stream = customers.stream()
    .flatMap(custFileItem -> {
        try {
            GZIPInputStream gis
                = new GZIPInputStream(new URL(custFileItem.url).openStream());
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(gis, UTF_8));
            // read the first few lines
            for (int i = 0; i < HEADER_LINES; i++) br.readLine();
            return br.lines().onClose(() -> {
              try { br.close(); }
              catch(IOException ex) { throw new UncheckedIOException(ex); }
            });
        } catch(IOException ex) {
            throw new UncheckedIOException(ex);
        }
    })
    .map(CustomerFileLineItem::new);

---

But for completeness, addressing the question literally:

First of all, you should not add a method definition like

@Override
public void forEachRemaining(final Consumer<? super CustomerFileLineItem> action) {
    throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
}

This method will surely backfire when you use the Stream API, as that’s where most non-short-circuiting operations will end up.

There is not even a reason to add it. When you don’t declare the method, you’ll get a reasonable default method from the Iterator interface.

When you fixed this issue, you can easily convert the Iterator to a Spliterator using Spliterators.pliteratorUnknownSize(Iterator, int).

But there is no reason to do so. Your code becomes simpler when implementing Spliterator in the first place:

public static class CustIterator
                    extends Spliterators.AbstractSpliterator<CustomerFileLineItem> {
    private static final int HEADER_LINES = 9; // 8 + 1 blank line
    BufferedReader bufferedReader;

    private final ArrayDeque<CustomerFileItem> custFileItems;

    public CustIterator(final List<CustomerFileItem> custFileItems) throws IOException {
        super(Long.MAX_VALUE, ORDERED|NONNULL);
        this.custFileItems = new ArrayDeque<>(custFileItems);
        processNext();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean tryAdvance(Consumer<? super CustomerFileLineItem> action) {
        if(bufferedReader == null) return false;
        try {
            String line = bufferedReader.readLine();
            while(line == null) {
                processNext();
                if(bufferedReader == null) return false;
                line = bufferedReader.readLine();
            }
            action.accept(new CustomerFileLineItem(line));
            return true;
        }
        catch(IOException ex) {
            if(bufferedReader != null) try {
                bufferedReader.close();
                bufferedReader = null;
            }
            catch(IOException ex2) {
                ex.addSuppressed(ex2);
            }
            throw new UncheckedIOException(ex);
        }
    }

    private void processNext() throws IOException {
        if (bufferedReader != null) {
            bufferedReader.close();
            bufferedReader = null;
        }
        if (!custFileItems.isEmpty()) { // only update if there's another file
            CustomerFileItem custFileItem = custFileItems.remove();
            GZIPInputStream gis
                = new GZIPInputStream(new URL(custFileItem.url).openStream());
            // default buffer size is 8 KB
            bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(gis, UTF_8));
            // read the first few lines
            for (int i = 0; i < HEADER_LINES; i++) {
                bufferedReader.readLine();
            }
        }
    }
}

But, as said at the beginning, you don’t even need to implement a Spliterator here.